Organizer of first Heritage Hill home tour looks back at urban renewal fight: 'We beat them'

The Heritage Hill Association's 50th annual Tour of Homes will be held Saturday, May 18, and Sunday, May 19. As the organization celebrates the revitalization of the neighborhood over the past 50 years, here's a look back at the forces the residents of Heritage Hill were facing in 1969 that led them to hold their first tour.

A neighborhood organizes

Cory Morse | MLive.com

A neighborhood organizes

In the late 1960s, as Americans were moving from cities to suburbs, the Heritage Hill neighborhood, located just east of downtown Grand Rapids, was developing a reputation for blight. Prospective buyers were unable to get home loans due to redlining, and city planners had a variety of plans in place to raze homes in the name of urban renewal.

Fifty years ago this month, as residents were staring down the wrecking ball, a group of them held a home tour to help save their neighborhood.

We were irate

MLive file photo

We were irate

To Barbara Roelofs, one of the original home tour planners, the words urban renewal were “nasty words.”

“We were irate,” Roelofs said. “What if you had a beautiful home in the city, and a planner said ‘We’re going to use public money and tear it down?’ You’d be angry. And you’d decide to do something about it. And I have particularly loud mouth.”

The Heritage Hill Association had been organized in 1968 to publicize the features of the neighborhood. Organizational minutes dated May 15, 1968 describe forming the association as more of a public relations effort than a mobilization to fight City Hall.

But with the Grand Rapids planning department crafting a variety of plans that would have eliminated 75 percent of the neighborhood, the association board realized action needed to be taken – and action would cost money.

Raising funds

Cory Morse | MLive.com

Raising funds

The Heritage Hill home tour was one of many efforts being organized in those years by the association, which was working on several fronts on the local, state and national level to save Heritage Hill.

In 1969, Roelofs, now 88, lived with her husband and three children on College Avenue in the same home where she still resides. She was familiar with the historic home tour in Marshall, Michigan, and had friends willing to walk her through the process of setting up a home tour.

The proceeds would help pay for an $8,000 survey necessary to get the neighborhood placed on the National Register of Historic Places, according to a history on file with the Heritage Hill Association office. It was one of the methods the association was pursuing to stop the imminent destruction.

"It will never work"

Cory Morse | MLive.com

"It will never work"

But among the original Heritage Hill Association members, there wasn’t agreement that a home tour would be successful, Roelofs said.

“When I said that I wanted to do a tour, especially the men on the board said “Oh, it will never work, nobody will ever come,’” Roelofs said. “We did it anyway – the women were more persistent – so we had a tour and it was a great success.”

The 1969 tour brought in more than 1,000 people, Roelofs said, and started a tradition that has continued ever since. In the early years, the tour was held twice a year - in the spring and the fall.

"We beat them"

Cory Morse | MLive.com

"We beat them"

The 1,300 structures in Heritage Hill feature many styles of American architecture, from Greek Revival to Prairie Style. The earliest dates back to 1844. The historic district is bordered by Lafayette Avenue on the west, Crescent Street on the north, Union Avenue on the east and Pleasant Street on the south.

The neighborhood was ultimately named to the National Register of Historic Places on March 11, 1971 – “three days before HUD approved the urban renewal plan,” Roelofs said. “So we beat them.”